It doesn't matter how many bums on seats you have, if the price ain't right it will always be a losing battle. In this case deciding not to take any extra fuel whenever possible is pretty much useless as well as it doesn't increase the profitability of that flight/company anyway. A bit black and white but you get the point, other considerations left aside.
They haven't mentioned the fact that many passengers, if not most, transfer onto other Gulf Air flights. So it's vital to get the right yield in order not to loose money from carrying one pax on two flights.
Surely the people deciding the prices know what to ask for and it's not being controlled by external influences. (Ie goverment etc) Nowadays most revenue in the business comes from 'other services' and not the ticket fare by itself. If that's where Gulf Air is lacking it needs to be adresses quickly.
The unionist also confirmed that plans were underway to slash popular routes because they were not cost-effective.
"We told the minister that there are some routes that are always full that are going to be cut, so we asked why not just increase the price on these routes," stressed Mr Mahdi.
Cutting popular routes means you will take a hit twice and when people go elsewhere it's damn hard to get them back, especially with the regions competions where Gulf Air is now only a minimal player. It's a bit like my previous airline that in all their wisdom decided to sell all their a/c spare parts they had in stock because someone calculated it was cheaper to buy when needed. Not long after the items were sold this prooved flawed (obviously) and they had to buy (their own) spares back at three times the price they sold them for. Someone made a nice profit on them and it wasn't the airline...